“Leaving the country in the hands of a murderer and a madman,” I pointed out.
“Which is why we cannot allow his plot to ripen even one week further.” It was O’Hara who spoke, which surprised me.
“Wouldn’t continuing to involve yourself in Survey business be furthering the actions of the Wheel of Life?” I asked him.
“One attains merit through action as well as by refraining from action,” he answered piously. “The innocent must be given the opportunity to attain self-knowledge, which the unfettered actions of the wicked would prevent.
“To say nothing of the fact,” he added, “that it should be jolly fun.”
Our startled laughter woke Bindra for a moment. He kneaded his eyes with his fists, located his father, and settled again, nuzzling into the robed lap with a sigh of contentment.
“If I understand you aright,” Nesbit said, ignoring my digression, “you would suggest that action be taken that does not bring the Army into this? Since,” he noted, his green eyes beginning to dance, “it was you who suggested that we might not wish to approach the encampment at this time.”
“Oah, Nesbit, truly you are a man after my own heart.”
“What do you propose?”
“Well,” the Irish Buddhist said, “you were willing to carry me on your shoulders from The Forts to the borders of Khanpur, until Miss Russell drew her gun.” Holmes stirred, and I realised, belatedly, that he knew nothing of the events of the previous midnight. “But as that demand was not made upon your back and sinews, perhaps, given a few days for your leg to heal, you would not mind carrying the considerably lesser weight of the maharaja?”
“Kidnap him?” The quirking of Nesbit’s mouth showed his love of the idea, although the hesitation in his eyes said he was thinking, too, of the report he would have to make to his superiors. Particularly if the plan went awry.
“Invite him outside to Delhi, for conversations,” O’Hara suggested.
Holmes took his pipe out of his mouth to point out gently, “He is in a heavily guarded fortress.”
“There is at least one concealed entrance,” O’Hara said. “When he came to the Old Fort in the night, he did not always come smelling of the outside world, but of stones and dampness.”
Holmes nodded. “I thought as much, the first time he came to my cell. But if a passageway links the Old Fort with the New, that would still require passing a number of guards. Unless it also has an opening to the outside.”
I sat up as if brushed by a raw wire. “The zoo!” The three men looked at me. “When the maharaja showed us the zoo, I noticed a small pathway going around the back of the lion pen, past the entrance used by the zookeepers. The big path was marked heavily by bits of spilt food and the drag of equipment, but beyond it was the sort of footpath worn by a single set of feet, walking it with regularity. His dogs knew it as well—when they would have gone down it, he called them back. Sharply.”
“That could be anything,” Nesbit objected.
“I think not. The lion pen itself is built right up against the hill of the Fort, firmly into its westernmost side. And just before going to the zoo, I was in a room in New Fort located on the heights of that same side. The toy room, he calls it. Have you seen it?” I asked Nesbit.
“Years ago, and briefly. But you’re right, it is on the western spur of the New Fort.”
“It has a hidden door. I noticed the wear on the floor there, where the marble is grey with soil and scattered particles of gravel. The servants do not clean in the toy room very often. And in fact,” I said as another piece of the puzzle came to me, “the maharaja has the reputation of sorcery—of being able to appear and disappear unexpectedly. No doubt this is partly explained by the number of purdah screens throughout the Fort, which would conceal a small elephant, but there may be a network of hidden passages as well. And you’d expect one to the outside, such as down to the zoo.
“Too,” I said before they could object, “there may be a similar hidden passage in that horrid fur-lined gun- room of his. A room which is near the gates on the east side, a location which would be very convenient for crossing under the road to the Old Fort in the night. A passageway smelling of stones and dampness.”
Silence again fell in the room, but it was an electric silence of intense speculation rather than repose. Even the boy was awake—or had given up the pretence of sleep—and had drawn himself up at his father’s side.
“Provocative,” Holmes said at last, and proceeded to repack his borrowed pipe with the Indian black leaf.
“You’re certain?” Nesbit demanded.
“Of soil and wear on the floor near two blank walls? Yes. That those doors lead to the zoo and the Old Fort? Of course I cannot be sure.”
“Even if we find a door out of the zoo, we could wander underneath the Fort for hours,” he fretted.
“Oah, Nesbit,” O’Hara said gently, “you English are so unhappy with uncertainty.”
“And you Indians are so deucedly eager to embrace it.”
The two men grinned at each other in easy understanding.
“However,” Nesbit said, struggling to get to his feet. “Tomorrow I ride to the encampment, to arrange a proper show of support once we get the gentleman across his border.”
We spread ourselves around the main room, Nesbit and myself on the narrow iron-framed beds, the others on the floor. Bindra turned down the paraffin lamp and padded back to his sleeping roll in front of the low-burning fire. We lay, silent with our thoughts, Nesbit’s bed creaking and complaining as he sought to find a comfortable position for his leg, but at last even he fell still.
But it was O’Hara who had the last word, voicing a thought that was going through my own mind, and I think Holmes’ as well.
“In the morning, when we are fresh, I should like to propose that the expedition into Khanpur be done posthaste.” Nesbit’s bed squealed in preface to his reaction, but the Irishman on the floor cut him off by saying, “I do not propose this tonight; but in the morning, we need to talk about it.”
Nesbit subsided, positively radiating distrust and suspicion. One by one, we slept.
All but O’Hara. Whenever I woke during the night, I could see him sitting before the dying embers, breathing the words to the prayer
Chapter Twenty-Seven
In the morning, Nesbit’s green eyes glittered with fever, although he swore that it was nothing, that he was capable of riding, that he would carry the maharaja on his back if it came to that. Holmes and O’Hara glanced at each other over the wounded man’s head, and said nothing, not then. But after we had eaten the eggs and bacon the servants cooked for us, both men drifted away outside where they stood, Holmes trying to get his pipe alight, O’Hara again fingering his rosary, their breath swirling into clouds in the heatless morning sun. I gave them five minutes, then walked out onto the fresh snow after them, my unprotected scalp tightening with the cold.
I saw no reason not to come to the point. “I’ll not be left behind to play nursemaid.”
O’Hara’s hands stopped their motion as he gave me a look of surprise, but Holmes merely smiled into his troublesome pipe.
“You want to go today,” I continued. “I agree: If the maharaja was angry enough to shoot his pet monkeys yesterday, then today, after having all of us escape him at one time, he’ll be insane with rage. I’m glad Sunny is out of things, but the others are too vulnerable. We can’t wait until Nesbit is fit, but I refuse to stay with him. Leave Bindra here.”
“Unfortunately, I have given my word that the boy will not be left behind again,” O’Hara told me.
“As you wish, although I don’t believe I’d take a son of mine into that hornets’ nest. When do we go?”
“It is better that you stay here,” O’Hara said. Holmes took an involuntary step back.
“And why is that?” I began, then stopped. “No, don’t bother, I don’t need to ask. What do women need to do in order to be taken as equals? Become Prime Minister? For heaven’s sake, just pretend I’m ‘Martin’ if it makes you any happier, but let’s have no more words about leaving Miss Russell out of anything. Besides, you need me. I’m the only one who’s been to the toy room.”
